


what is and what could never be

by dip_dyed_ghost



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Dream life, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, dream walking, hunter!Dan, hunter!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_dyed_ghost/pseuds/dip_dyed_ghost
Summary: On a hunt gone awry, Dan gets attacked by a djinn and is forced to make a decision: does he stay in the dream the creature has put him in, or does he return to his cold, bleak reality?
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tw for in-dream suicide

The motel reminds Dan of a place once abandoned. 

Dust puffs up as they walk through the door to their room, the rug so dirty it's probably been a decade since it was last cleaned. The scent of wet clothes hangs in the air, the kind of smell that happens when a load of laundry is forgotten in the wash. Outside, the shingles seem to be falling off all along the one-story building, curling and chipping and leaving the roof vulnerable to the seagulls in the area. Phil throws his rucksack onto the rightmost bed.

Dan chooses not to mention how he always picks the bed furthest from the door; he figures Phil's earned it. 

"Well, this is a right dump," Phil says, before Dan even has a chance to settle in. 

“Oh shut up. We've had worse and you know it."

It was true. Throughout the years of travelling from town to town, city to city, saving people and killing things that go bump in the night, they've had some pretty crappy arrangements.

"At least this place doesn't have bed bugs," Dan adds, a cheeky smile on his face. He makes his hands into little pincers and clicks his tongue. "Unless you miss your little friends?"

Phil visibly shutters. "If you don't stop talking, I'm going to make you."

The irony wasn't lost on Dan. He's seen Phil stab a body, decapitate a head, land a killing blow that splattered droplets of blood across his cheeks - all without flinching - and yet, the threat of teeny, tiny bugs sends him shrieking and running into the other room. What a joke. He hopes Mothman doesn't exist, and if he does, that they never encounter him.

"You want pizza?" Dan asks, clamouring onto his own bed. He forces the pillows to mold to his shape and then takes his journal out of his bag. "I want pizza. I saw a Domino's when we were driving in, about 10 minutes back." 

Phil stops unpacking and looks at him. "Could we? Please?"

Dan huffs. "I already said yes."

Before calling, he inks the name of the kid they saved yesterday on his designated page, then adds another line to the ever-growing tally on another one. At one point, there were so many lines he had to flip to another page to continue his count. It's a good visual representation of why they're doing all of this for, travelling across the country, making a small difference - because the difference isn't small, not to those they save and to those who care about them. It's a raison-d'être. Dan needs that reminder. 

Overall, though, this life fucking sucks.

Dan loses their game of rock-paper-scissors and is elected to go pick up their food while Phil scours the internet for more information about this hunt. All they know so far is that people are going missing - there one second, gone the next.

Phil always did do better with the research part. It was how he found Dan a few years back, jumping him one night on the way to his car and demanding his help at knifepoint. Phil's come a long way since then. Time on the road spent saving families in the way he couldn't save his own seemed to quell a part of him, as well as having a friend, a hunter, who understood. They both made good stand-in families for the ones they no longer had. 

Red and blue lights reflect off his windshield as Dan pulls into the Domino's parking lot. It's late, but apparently not too late to have a few customers grabbing midnight take-out. Dan pushes the car door open, a slight chill seeping in through the gaps of his jacket, caressing his skin with cool air. 

He gets a place in line, noting everything: there's two cameras behind the counter as well as one on top of the main exit on his left, three staff members - one working cash, the other two in the back - and four customers other than himself currently in the building. There's a knife sheathed in each of his boots.

Just in case. For emergencies. 

It only takes a minute or two for him to get to the front of the line. Dan gives the girl his name for pick-up and fishes in his pocket for money. "Do you guys have sauces?" he nearly forgets to ask, distracted by the pair of eyes he can feel watching him, making the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. Without turning around, he knows that there's a man sat alone in the corner, of medium built and a bald head, silver rings adorning each of us fingers like he belongs to the mafia.

"What kind would you like?" the girl asks. 

"All of them. One of everything," Dan says. "Please," he adds, hoping that it'll stop her from giving him a weird look. It doesn't, but he gets his sauces in the end, so who's the real winner here. She hands him a pizza box with a bag on top and he goes to leave with it.

The man in the corner seems to have lost interest in him in favour of a 20-something year old woman who was in the front of the line. She's off to the side now, waiting for the rest of her order to be cooked, tapping away on her phone and not paying attention to her surroundings. It doesn't sit right with Dan. The man's not just admiring the way she looks - the way his eyes passed on all of them before settling on her was similar to that of a predator, a creature looking for its next meal, who now settles back in his chair like he's found his main course and can't wait to begin feasting.

Dan halts before he exit, staring at him. The man slowly turns his head towards him. He gives Dan a smile, lips pulled up just enough so that he can see his fangs, eyes briefly flashing blue with magic before turning away and looking at the girl again. Dan wants to curse.

It's a fucking djinn.

And a foolish one, at that. It must not realize he's a hunter, which is fine by him - the element of surprise is a good asset. Dan rushes to the car, feet catching on the ground. He throws the food in the front seat in pulls out his phone, finding Phil's name in his messages.

dan : it's a djinn. just saw it now. don't have time to come and get you - tracking it on my own.

The message is just a quick one to let him know why he might be back late. Phil won't like it, will probably call him reckless when he gets back, but tough shit. People are in danger. Dan gets a response immediately.

phil : Umm? Don't you dare??

dan : talk later

Dan puts his phone on silent and shoves it into his pocket. He knows Phil's going to be mad at him, and it makes his heart clench, the thought of the only person he trusts being upset with him. But he can't focus on that right now. He has a djinn to dispose of and people to save.

Dan pulls out and drives to the other side of the street, no longer in the immediate view of the people inside the restaurant, but still letting him see both exit points. He turns off the car, and waits. And waits. Five minutes go by, and then ten. The girl gets her food and leaves. Not twenty steps behind her is the man, ringed hands shoved deep into his pockets, his smooth head reflecting red and blue as he passes under the sign. The girl disappears around a corner, and so does he.

The handle of his knife is firm in Dan's grip as he books it.

He keeps his weapon close to his body less any passerby see it. Thick, black boots skid against the gravel as he turns the corner, finding a dead-end alleyway with a few torn trash bags spilling empty soda cans and soaked tissues out of its guts. Doors line the brick wall to his left - flats, he assumes, judging by the numbers beside them. The brick is awkward and bulgy, the edges poking out and looking rough to the touch. Dan breathes in and out, slowing his heartbeat, proceeding with well-placed steps and his weapon raised. 

There's nowhere to hide; the only place they could have gone is into a flat. 

Dan tries all the doors. No luck. A lock pick wouldn't even help; he has no idea which one they went into. Dan curses under his breath, knife still in hand as he pulls out his phone with his right one, not surprised to find a string of texts from Phil, all sent a minute or so apart.

phil : You need backup!

phil : DAN 

phil : Dan?

phil : Please let me know you're alive. 

phil : If you die I'm going to kill you. 

dan : i’m fine. i lost it. coming back now.

He's barely pressed send before a weight smashes him up against a wall. It's heavy and solid and makes his teeth rattle on impact, his entire perspective shifting skyward to the stars. Dan doesn't have time to react before a hand slams his forehead, pushing his skull hard into the brick. Blue sparks erupt in tendrils, wrapping around him, the edges of the wall digging into Dan’s head as the pressure on his chest starts to cut off his air.

The world flashes blue, and then everything goes black.

  


* * *

  


Consciousness returns to him at its own leisure pace. 

The first thing Dan registers is the light shining in his eyes and pulling him from sleep. He groans, burrowing his face deep into his pillow, willing the sun to go away and leave him alone in the most comfortable bed he's ever felt. The duvet around him has just the right amount of plush, the mattress is on the right side of firm, and when he spreads his legs out, the sheets are cool, a relief from the pocket of warmth that's accumulated. 

It all feels very high quality. Which is odd, because he doesn't remember the hotel being all that nice.

Dan shoots up so fast his head goes dizzy. 

He flips around, taking in the room with quick eyes, scanning for any threats - traps, a cage, the fucking djinn itself. Dan feels like an idiot. He looks over the side of the bed for his boots, the ones with another knife tucked into it, but all he sees is a crumpled black t-shirt lying on the floor beside a pair of jeans, something he would wear in his old life. No one else is in the room. 

It's at this moment Dan realizes he's only wearing boxers.

He pauses. Listens. Every few seconds there's a clatter coming from another room, the sounds of pans and dishes, of someone cooking. Now that he knows he's not in immediate danger, Dan notices the small details of the room - there's posters up of an anime he used to watch when he still had the time, knick knacks he doesn't quite understand but that look cool on a dresser, a closet that's open showing an array of black clothes hung inside.

In his mind's eye, Dan sees all the information he's ever read about djinns. _They can grant wishes_ , some sources say. Him and Phil know that's not true, though - they only make people _think_ they've granted a wish, when really, they force them into a dream, making them blissfully unaware of the danger as the djinn feeds on their life source, feasting until all that's left of their victims is a dried husk. They tempt them to stay by giving them a chance to live out their perfect life.

Dan needs to get out of here.

He rolls out of bed and dresses with the clothes on the floor, because he's still not entirely sure if this is real or not. And he needs to be 100% sure before he can escape; there’s no coming back from the kind of deed he needs to do to exit a djinn-induced dream.

The clattering gets louder the farther he walks into the flat. He can smell food now, the mouth-watering aroma of homemade cooking hanging in the air, and this close he can hear humming, the notes of a muse song sung in a voice as familiar as his own.

Dan rounds the corner into the kitchen, and as soon as he sees Phil, he lets the last of his guard drop.

He knows what this is. 

"Do you want bacon," Phil asks him with his back turned, "or is today a vegan day, too?" 

Dan stares. What he should do, is find the nearest knife and immediately stab it into his own chest, killing his dream-self and thus waking himself up. He should do it. He _could_ do it - there's a knife lying on a cutting board a few steps away, right in his reach, big and sharp and definitely enough to finish himself off. Instead, Dan pointedly walks away from it and sits down at the table on a grey, plastic chair. 

A few moments in this world won't hurt. For curiosity's sake. 

Dan clears his throat, and tells him, "Bacon sounds good."

Phil lifts a spatula up in acknowledgement without turning around. He's dressed in nightwear, a white shirt of forgiving fabric folding as he moves, yellow pyjama pants patterned with emojis, cuffs ending a few inches above what looks like bunny slippers. Physically, he looks the same as he does in the real world, but the way he moves is different, less stressed and on edge and more at peace with everything around him.

Phil shovels something onto a plate and turns to lay it in front of Dan. The quiet sound of ceramic on wood echoes out. There's bacon and hash browns and even a little section of scrambled eggs. He trails a hand across the top of Dan's back as he walks by, stopping at the last minute to pull him closer by the shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to his head, so much love condensed into that one gesture that Dan can't breathe.

It's not something his Phil would do.

Dan needs to leave. He needs to leave _now_. This world is more than he expected, more than he ever dared let himself hope for, only indulged in on late nights when sleep won't come, when Phil's steady breaths mix with the thrum of heaters as Dan lay on a separate bed, wishing more than anything for the distance between them to be closed. For the life hunters can never have.

Phil sits down across from him. "What do you think? Too much effort?"

Dan fumbles to find his words. "No," he says, “it's lovely." And it is. Phil smiles and is about to start on his food, but Dan motions for him to wait. He can’t stop feeling the ghost of the kiss on his head.

"Are we..." Dan says, but then he figures this is his dream, not anyone else's. He can do what he wants. It's not like he'll be spending a long time here, anyway. Before Phil can question him, Dan gets up, the metal legs of his chair squeaking against the floor, and walks over to him, stopping a single step away.

Dan cups Phil's cheeks, leans down, and kisses him. He's been wanting to do this for a long time, always too scared of the real Phil's reaction to actually take the jump. Even though it's not real, it sure feels like it is, lips pressed against his, soft and sweet and perfect, and Phil returns the kiss like it's the easiest thing in the world for him.

Dan pulls back to find him smiling. "Are we what?" Phil asks, the dopiest look on his face. 

"Never mind," Dan whispers. He trails his hands down Phil’s neck, his shoulders, his arms, taking it all in and coming to rest at his wrists. He pulls, and Phil stands up. 

As soon as they're on the same level, Dan wraps his arms around him, hugging him close, bowing to his rest his forehead on Phil's shoulder. The most amazing thing is how Phil hugs him back, just as tight, too, his arms coming to wrap around his lower back. He feels warm and safe and held like he never has in his life. Dan can smell the clean scent of laundry detergent lingering on his shirt. Phil doesn't say anything. 

Dan swallows. "Am I allowed to do this?" he asks, voice quiet as he looks at the floor. 

He feels more than hears Phil's laugh. "What kind of questions is that?" he asks. Phil pulls him closer, leaning forward so that his breath warms Dan's ear, and says deeply, "You can do anything you want to me." A thrill goes up Dan's spine.

He needs the knife. He needs it now, like, _right now_ , but then Phil's hands find their way up the back of his shirt, big and warm and leaving trails of heat in their wake, pulling him closer by the hips, and Dan wants to melt into it. He wants to stay here with the normal life he never got to have and let himself love and be loved. Dan just _wants_.

A bit longer won't hurt. 

He can off himself tomorrow. 

Tomorrow.

  


* * *

  


Dan doesn't stab himself tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. He doesn't know with certainty how much time has passed in the real world, but it can't have been that long - time is faster in these magic-induced dreams, meant to feel like a lifetime in only a few days. Dan guesses it's been an hour at most. Maybe two. 

He does think about the real Phil. But instead of picturing how worried he must be getting, Dan focuses on the little things: how they only hug after near-death experiences, how they never show affection, how their line of work has made Phil shut down to cope with it, rarely showing positive emotions less they be taken away, like they have been so many times in the past. Even if whatever Dan feels is mutual - which it’s not - he knows Phil would never let it blossom into anything like this. He'd be too scared.

At the moment, Dan's on the couch using dream Phil's lap as a pillow. His legs are warm against his cheek. There's an episode of an show he's only ever heard of flickering on the TV in the den. Every few seconds, Phil cards his hands through his curls, the pressure nice and comforting, encouraging his eyes to shut, unlike any type of love he's received before. There's no price, nothing to give up; it just is, asking and giving without obligation. 

"Are you falling asleep?" Phil asks.

Dan sighs, stretching so that his feet dangle off the edge of the couch. "No," he says, then corrects, "maybe."

Phil brings a hand back to the top of Dan's head, but instead of continuing its course and playing with his hair, two of his fingers slide down his forehead and the rest of his face, forcing his eyelids shut. Dan grumbles and swats his hand away. In retaliation, Phil bounces his leg, jostling Dan's head and shifting his position so that they're facing each other.

"What'd you do that for," Dan asks, all sleepy. "I was comfy."

"I was helping." Phil goes to close Dan's eyes again, and this time he lets him, the pads of his fingertips featherlight and so, so gentle.

The last two days in the dream were spent in a state of almost denial, of 'I'll get out of here tomorrow, I will, I swear, but please, just let me have one more moment.' They spent it playing video games, eating takeout, doing things that definitely aren’t child friendly, even hanging out with friends Dan had never seen before, a girl called Cat and two guys called Chris and PJ, who laughed at his jokes and understood his rambles enough to debate with him. They seemed cool. 

Friends. What a weird concept.

He doesn’t have any outside of this. All he has is a too cold Phil and the promise that what he’s doing is helping people. 

In here, though, there’s so much more to live for. He isn’t in mortal danger every day. Dan can relax, revel in the company, enjoy his existence instead of dreading it, on his own terms. He gets to decide. It’s so much better, in every way possible. 

But there is one fact he can’t avoid: if Dan stays, he dies. It’d be inevitable. 

What would it matter though, if outside of here he’s just a cog in a machine anyway, a drop in the ocean, a single pin point in the night sky? There’s the real Phil, and he would be sad, sure, but he’d carry on. He’d continue saving people, hunting things. Doing what needs to be done.

And Dan can just…stay here. 

A feeling of contentment surrounds him. He basks in it.

Yeah. 

Dan can just stay here.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to do a supernatural au at some point. returning to my fandom roots, or whatever :p


	2. Chapter 2

Phil sits on the side of his bed chewing his nails, a habit he hasn't indulged in ages.

Dan said he was coming back now. That was over an hour ago. Phil gets up and paces back and forth through the room, thinking, thinking, thinking. The scent of wet laundry has dissipated, replaced by an old scent, an ancient one of mothballs and of linen longtime buried away in the closet. A sharp stab of pain goes through his finger, and he pulls his teeth away. The edge of his nail bed is bleeding.

Dan could have gotten lost. He could have been in a minor accident that he had to deal with. There could have been a big accident he wasn't involved in, and the roads had to be temporarily closed to deal with it. He was just...delayed. Held up. 

None of those situations explain why all of Phil's texts go on unread and unanswered, or why all of his calls go to straight to voicemail. 

Maybe Dan's phone died. Or broke.

Phil pulls on his hair at the root and squeezes his eyes shut.

Or, more likely, it's because none of those situations actually happened, and in reality, it's the one Phil doesn't want to think about: the djinn found Dan after all. That makes the most sense. Dan's probably withering away in some abandoned building, locked in his own mind, as Phil twiddles his thumbs and does nothing but research and worry. He wants to punch a hole through the wall. Scream or something. 

Phil grabs his coat so fast it whips through the air, laces up his boots, and opens the Uber app on his phone.

He's waited long enough.

  


* * *

  


It takes him a minute to find their car. Dan hadn’t parked it in the Domino’s parking lot, but rather a little ways away on the other side of the street. Phil jogs to it. There's no damage, no signs of struggle, just the sleek, black paint and clear windows he can see himself in. Ignoring the way his face is pinched like he's going to throw up, Phil grabs the spare set of keys in his coat pocket and gets into the front seat. 

The pizza box sitting on the passenger’s side is an unwelcome sight. The plastic bag sitting on top - that Phil knows is filled with sauces - even more so.

Okay. They've done this before. Getting separated on hunts wasn't common, but it has happened, and they've always gotten out of it alive. Dan was probably already getting out of it; he knew what he had to do. They both did.

That information alone wasn't much of a comfort, though.

Phil thinks back to conversation they had, while sitting at a 60s themed diner after a day of researching various creatures, a djinn among them. Phil was fascinated by them, by how they could make you believe you had the perfect life by taking away your real one, how they could even figure out your perfect life in the first place, but Dan didn't seem to want to talk about it. He mostly stayed silent, only giving monosyllabic answers when necessary. It wasn't like him.

PhilI ended up asking him, voice quiet, while driving them back to whichever motel they were at for the night, if he would stay if he was ever caught by one.

Dan wouldn't look at him. He took his time replying, staring out the passenger side's window. 'No,' was what he ended up saying, offended, 'of course not.’

Phil pulls out his phone with shaky hands and starts looking up abandoned buildings in the area.

  


* * *

  


All djinn need a lair, a place to hide away their victims so that they can siphon off their life source over the course of days. Abandoned places seems to be a hot spot for them; the perfect location to go undisturbed. 

The biggest one Phil found was an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of town, about twenty minutes away. 

Every sense of his is heightened as he walks in with a raised knife through an open side door, the hinges of it rusted so bad they would probably break off if he had to push it. It leads down a mostly empty corridor, hall dark without any windows lighting it up. Phil takes out a torch and turns it on. The floor is covered in dust, packs of cobwebs and rat droppings amalgamating in the crevices as little presents for the spiders. He grimaces.

It's a big hospital, bigger than he expected, each room leading into another, so many twists and turns that he gets lost a few times and has to turn back, not sure which way is where anymore. It's feels like a maze, a creepy, haunted maze, filled with sheet-stripped beds, wheelchairs, tossed plastic, discarded wrappers, and the odd syringe or two that Phil does his best to avoid.

He finds himself in the lobby. There's a big sign hung up on the wall, still blue and glossy even after everything else in here has faded. Phil almost wishes he hadn't seen it - printed at the bottom is the word 'Morgue' with an arrow pointing down beside it. 

Morgue in the basement. Of course.

Phil's teeth threaten to chatter the deeper he walks down the metal stairs. He can see his breath come out in puffs. It opens up into a damp and dank room, even darker than the others. His torch casts weird shadows along the wall as he passes spare equipment. They look like spindly limbs, thick tree trunks that have been bent and crushed, stacked beds turning into patches of darkness and machines into looming monsters.

He doesn't want to think about Dan down here, passed out and alone. He doesn't want to think about him slowly dying. 

So he doesn't. Phil forces himself into hunter mode - he squashes down all emotions and lifts his consciousness to his head, logic and reasoning putting him in place, nothing left to distract him, because all it takes is a second to be knocked down good as dead. 

And he can't save Dan from the grave. 

Near the back, the room opens up into metallic holding units all along the wall, sectioned-off by squares that could be pulled out to reveal a stretcher with a body on it. Other than that, the room is empty, spotless, no dust, no dirt, nothing like Phil had seen upstairs. It’s so clean one could serve food in here. 

He approaches the holding units. Phil grabs the bottom of one at random, gives it a good pull, and the stretcher comes sliding out fast, no extra weight on it holding it down. He tries a few others beside it with the same result.

It's a waste of time. Dan might not even be in the building, and here he was playing hide and seek with nothing. There were other abandoned places in the area he should be checking out. Phil gives one of the units a last good tug for the hell of it, only to find it resisting him, heavier than the others. 

Everything in him freezes.

When he tugs it open it seems to happen in slow-mo. The light first reveals boots Phil recognizes, thick sturdy ones he sees next to his own pair every morning, then goes higher up, black jeans Dan refuses to get rid of even though they're faded, a flannel they share between them because it's comfy, and finally, there's Dan's face, a confirmation, his left temple caked with dry and darkened blood, skin paled a concerning amount considering how lively he looked just hours ago.

“Dan?" Phil says quickly, grabbing his face between his hands. "Dan. Can you hear me?" He gives him a little shake. All it does is jostle his limp body. In a panic, Phil places two fingers against his neck; there's a pulse there, slow and sluggish but _there_ , and a hand in front of Dans mouth reveals that he's breathing, too. The relief threatens to collapses Phil's knees.

He turns around and listens. The djinn is nowhere in sight - maybe in another part of the hospital, maybe out hunting for new victims - but that’s fine by Phil. He and Dan can come back and finish it once Dan is okay. Once he’s safe. 

Hoisting him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, Phil carries them out of there and back to the car. 

They need to be in a safe place before Phil can go in and pull him out himself.

  


* * *

  


Back at the hotel they're both lying on separate beds. Dan's still knocked out cold, the djinn's magic keeping him indefinitely in his dream until his body gives out on him. Phil, on the other hand, holds a potion they were gifted from a witch during a prior hunt, one that lets a person dream-walk at will. He never thought there'd be a reason to use it. It's purple and sparkly and when Phil uncorks it, the smell of plums and chocolate fills the air. 

With one last look at Dan lying still, he shoots it back, lies down, and passes out before his head hits the pillow. 

Phil wakes up to find himself lying on the floor of a place he's never seen before. He sits up, noting that he's on kitchen tile, hands cool while pressed against it. A pile of dishes is stacked up in the sink to his right. A fan whirs somewhere in the distance, no doubt what's causing the air in here to be so comfortable. Phil stands.

It doesn't escape his notice that this is _Dan's_ dream, _Dan's_ perfect life, and for that reason every little detail seems that much more interesting. He should find Dan right away and bring him out, but he can't help himself - Phil wants to explore a little first. 

There's a myriad of mugs in one of the cupboards, one with an 8-bit heart design balancing on top of one printed with an emblem from A Game of Thrones, two others inspired by chocolate wrappers, and one shaped like Hello Kitty, but none of them throw him like the last one he finds.

It's nothing special by itself. It's a mug that matches a thousand other copies in whatever gift shop it came from. Nothing interesting. What's striking about it, though, is that at the bottom, inked out in bold, block letters, is Phil's name. He picks it up, ever so gently. 

Phil can't explain the warm feeling he gets when he realizes that there must be a version of himself here. That Phil means so much to Dan that he somehow deserved a place in a world he believes is perfect. 

For a split second Phil wonders if he's taken over that body, but he's still wearing the same clothes he had on in the outside world, the same boots, same flecks of dry blood he hasn't had time to wash out of the crevices in his hands yet, so he figures that's a no. 

The pattering of feet echoes from another room. It loudens as it gets closer, and Phil puts the mug back.

Dan walks into sight, face puffy from sleep, hair ruffled in every direction as he rubs his neck. He notices Phil right away. His eyes go wide as he freezes, immediately grabbing his side where he keeps his knife in the real world, a reflex, but all he gets is air, no scabbard to found on top of his fleece pyjama pants. 

"Phil?" he croaks out. 

For a split second Phil's just happy to see him, forgetting where they are and the circumstances. He rushes forward, pulling him into a tight hug, grasping at his striped shirt to ground himself. The material is different from Dan's hunting jackets, more soft and stretchy, nothing like the firm utility jackets they both sport during hunts. Phil pulls back, holding onto him by the shoulders, and takes in how...contrasting, this Dan is to the one he knows. 

Where his Dan is hard and blunt, this dream version is soft, smoothed out along the edges, the lack of tension in his face giving him back years and making him look so much younger. He looks like a completely new person.

"What are you doing here?" Dan asks, so still it looks like his chest isn't rising and falling. Phil realizes he hadn't hugged him back.

"What I do best." He gives a Dan a smile that isn't returned. "Saving you. Duh."

Phil can get mad at him later. There are more important things he needs to attend to. He lets him go and turns on his heels to go rifle through the kitchen drawers. He opens the one closest to him, looking for a knife, but all that's in there is a few measuring cups and various types of spatulas. He shuts it, saying, "Where do you keep your cutlery?"

Phil reaches for another drawer, and suddenly Dan's by his side, pulling his arm away, a look on his face that he can't place. 

"Stop," Dan says softly. 

"What?" Phil asks. Dan leads him away, crossing rooms to stop at a couch. ”Why? Do you have a better way to do it?" 

Phil just says it to play the devil's advocate. It's at the back of his mind, the reason why Dan's still here, why he had to come in himself, even though there are thousands of ways Dan could have gotten out alone. He's still here because he wants to be, but Phil's not going to mention it. Not directly. 

"If we leave right now, we don't have to talk about it," Phil says. "We can forget this ever happened."

Dan sits down on the grayish-brown couch and Phil follows suit. It's comfy, plush.

“You found me, I guess?” Dan says.

“Yeah. I don’t know where the djinn went, but we’re back at the motel right now.”

“So you’re safe.” Dan nods. “What about the other girl?”

A feeling of dread spreads through him. “…What other girl?”

“The girl,” Dan repeats. “The target. The whole reason I chased after the djinn in the first place.”

Phil doesn't want to answer. He'd been so caught up in finding Dan that the thought that there might be others didn't even cross his mind. He feels like that says something about him, but he can't dwell on it; they really don't have time now.

"We'll have to go back and look for her,” Phil says. “As soon as you're out of here, we can go."

Dan sits back a bit, fingers fiddling with the fabric of the cushions. "Yeah, about that... “

_Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it._

Dan takes a breath. “I’m not leaving." There’s no pride in the way he says it. The shame in his statement casts his head downwards, makes him avoid Phil’s eye. Even though Phil was expecting it, it it still catches him off guard, the confirmation hurting his heart.

"Dan," he says, leaning forward, but Dan just moves away, angling his body elsewhere. "Dan," Phil repeats.

"Nothing you can say will change my mind. I've thought about it a lot. I don't-" he laughs, the pitch of it all wrong, "it's not exactly a decision to be taken lightly, you know?"

Phil wants to shake him, knock some sense into him. "You can't stay." 

"And why not?" Dan looks at him with his chin angle upwards, daring, defensive.

_You can't just leave me behind._

"Because. You'll..."

“Listen. I’m completely aware of the situation.” Dan taps out a staccato beat against the couch. “I’m an adult, and if I want to stay, then that’s my choice. Not yours or anybody else’s."

Phil could scream if he was the type to express things out loud. They usually don't disagree, but when they do, Dan is stubborn, set in his ways, and it's almost impossible for Phil to change his mind once he's decided on something. It's like talking to a person that can't hear him. But Phil can't not try. He needs to say his part.

"You expect me to just, what, bring your body motel-to-motel with me until it stops breathing?"

Dan shrugs. "Dump me off somewhere, then. I don't care."

" _Dan_."

It's too much, the casual and blunt way he brushes it off. Like it means nothing. Like he isn't important. Phil can't take it; sitting in front of him is the most wonderful person he's ever met, his best friend, someone he loves so much that sometimes it takes his breath away, and he's sitting there saying that giving up his life doesn't matter. 

Tears start falling down Phil's cheeks without his permission.

"Oh," Dan says, face crumpling. "Don't do that. Hey. It's okay." He moves closer to him on the couch, hand coming to rest on his shoulder in an attempt at comfort. It doesn't help much. 

"Please," Phil whispers. His throat is thick and makes his voice crack in weird places. "You can't stay. You _can't_." 

"Ah, fuck..." Dan wraps an arm around him and pulls him in. "Just- come here. Sit with me for a bit."

Phil goes easy, falling into Dan's side like a collapsed building. It all feels so real - Dan's body heat seeping through the fabric, the pressure around Phil's shoulders, the way he can feel Dans chest rising and falling beside him. Why can't they do this in the real world? Why can they only be like this in these kinds of situations?

"I'm not going back," Dan says, so quiet Phil can barely hear it. "I've made my choice."

Phil shakes his head. “You have to. Dan.” An idea suddenly strikes him, and he turns to face him. "We can make the outside world match this one, okay? I can help you with it. It'll be even better." The image sparks off in his head. "You want a flat like this? We can get one. I'll even get a legit job that doesn't involve credit card scamming. We can fill the cupboards with a bunch of stupid mugs, and I can be the roommate that annoys you by leaving my stuff all over, and we don't have to hunt, ever again. We'll stop. It'll be great. You'll see."

Dan smiles at him sadly. He pulls his arm back to himself. ”That's a pretty big thing you're promising." 

"I mean it." Phil wipes his face. "We can build the life you want.”

Dan stays quiet for a long time. He doesn't move away farther away, their sides still pressed together as Phil holds his breath and waits for an answer. 

For both their sakes, he hopes Dan chooses to go with him. He doesn't know what he'll do if he doesn't. In all of their disagreements, Phil has never blatantly gone against his wishes, always respecting what he thought was right, but this is an extenuating circumstance. The morals are grey here. He can let Dan make his own choice, or he can make it for him. Phil refuses to think about it unless Dan for sure says ‘no.’

Dan closes his eyes. "You really had to come in here and tempt me, didn't you?" He laughs, but it's pained, a sound that grates Phil's ears. "You couldn't just let me have this?" 

"Dan-"

"No, shit, sorry- I'm not mad at you. You're fine." Dan bends over and rubs his face, voice becoming muffled."I'm just...I don't know what I'm feeling. It's a lot." 

Sometimes, Phil thinks it's more painful to see Dan hurting than it is to be in pain himself. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. A pat on the shoulder? Maybe? Deciding that's too awkward, Phil settles on squeezing Dan's knee, a gesture he hopes is interpreted as 'It's okay. I'm here.' Dan sighs, sitting up on an inhale. There's a somber, resigned look on his face.

"You have to let me say goodbye first."

Phil's heart skips a beat. "Okay," he says quickly. In that moment, he would have agreed to any condition Dan could've laid down, given him whatever he wanted, anything.

Well. Almost anything.

"Alone," Dan continues. 

"What?" 

"You go first, and I'll follow when I'm done."

Alarms start blaring in Phil's head. The idea of leaving Dan here, alone, without him here to talk him out, is terrifying. Phil would be helpless from the outside. Surely, Dan knows that.

"Once I'm gone, I won't have any way back. The potion bottle's empty," Phil says. Judging by the unsurprised look on Dans face, he knows it, too. "...But you already knew that." A thought occurs to him. "You're trying to trick me." 

And suddenly it makes sense. If Phil leaves, they'll be no one left to force Dan out, no one to convince him to make the right choice. He'll be free to experience the things that made him want to stay in the first place. Dan rushes to correct him. 

"It's not a trick," Dan stresses. "I'm going to need you to trust me. "

"If I leave without you, I'll- I'll never get you back. No. No. I'm not doing that."

Dan grabs his hand on his knee, squeezes back like a plea.

"Phil. I promise, I'll get out as soon as I'm done. Do you trust me?" 

What a stupid question. Of course he does; he doesn't even need to think. He'd trust him with everything he has, every item he owns, every thought he's ever had, every secret, every flaw, every piece of himself he never dared show anyone else. It's unlike anything he's ever felt. But trusting Dan is a very different thing than leaving him alone. That's infinitely more scary. He doesn't know if he can do it.

"Do you trust me?" Dan repeats. 

"With my life," Phil replies softly. 

He cups Phil's cheek, looking right at him. "Then trust me with mine."

Phil believes him. Against every piece of logic, the risk, the off-chance that he'll never see him again, Phil believes him. It's a feeling deep down in his gut, telling him that Dan isn't lying to him. He means what he says. 

"You have to promise you'll come out." 

"I do. I promise. Watch," Dan says, putting one hand to his chest and his other in the air beside him, "I, Daniel Howell, solemnly swear that I will follow you out into the great, terrible unknown, as soon as I'm done here."

Even with how serious it all is, it cracks a smile out of Phil. "Terrible?" 

Dan huffs. "Would you prefer awful? Atrocious? Completely and utterly dreadful?"

"I'd prefer amazing, actually. Something good."

Dan smiles back. "Of course you would."

Noise suddenly comes from deeper in the flat, the sound of someone moving around. Phil has enough time to idly wonder if it's his dream-self before Dan tenses up beside him, getting up and bringing Phil with him.

"Annnd that's your cue," Dan says, shuffling them into the kitchen at an ankle-bending speed. He open a drawer, hands Phil a knife, and stands there for a second, seemingly at a loss of what to do. “Well, go on. I'm sure it'll work just fine."

Phil doesn't doubt that - it's large and sharp and could probably cut off his finger. He adjusts his grip. The weight angles his hand downwards. It's curiosity that makes him hesitate, and maybe it's a little selfish, but he wants to know with certainty that a version of him is actually here. He has a hard time believing he matters that much to Dan.

"Who's over there?" Phil asks, unable to bite his tongue. "Who do you need to say goodbye to? " 

"No one. I'll tell you later."

“Dan-"

The sound of someone moving around is closer, steps pattern towards the living room.

"Fuck," Dan whispers. He pushes on Phil's hand holding the knife. " _Do it_." 

He leaves Phil standing there and starts walking to the living room. Half-way there he’s intercepted by another person.

It's- Phil, in a weird way, a version that wears glasses in the morning and doesn't seem to care that his hair is quiffed up. Real-Phil doesn’t miss the way Dan freezes, a strange type of fear passing across his eyes. The way they're positioned let's him see what's going on without the risk of dream-Phil noticing him.

His dream version smiles as he sees Dan. He walks up to him, places his hands on Dan’s hips like it’s a move he does all the time, and kisses him right on the mouth. Dan doesn't move. 

Phil’s brain stops working. 

Once dream-Phil has pulled back, Dan asks, "Can you grab my mac for me? It's in-" he pauses, quiets his voice "-our room."

The real Phil stands there blinking, the hold on his knife going slack. Dream-Phil says something he can't hear, then heads off to wherever. As soon as he's gone Dan is turning right back around, coming towards him with panic woven into every inch of him, his expression pained. 

"Don't say anything," he says quickly. "Just leave. Please."

"You-"

"Just leave. Just leave," Dan pleads. "Do this one last thing for me."

Phil's entire world is tilted on its head. For a solid second he wonders if this is actually his own dream, if the djinn had gotten him, too, because there was no way this was happening. Nothing this good is ever given to him. Dan looking like he's about to have a breakdown is what snaps him out of it, makes him realize that, yeah, this is probably real, and that he owes Dan a reaction.

“You’re such an idiot,” Phil says. 

He steps forward so they're in each other's bubble. There's fear eating at his heels but courage is easy to find when what he's about to do is something he knows Dan wants. A million emotions seem to flicker across Dan's face. He doesn't have time to speak before Phil is leaning in, copying what his dream-self did, minus grabbing his hip with the hand holding the knife. 

He feels stupid doing it, like somehow he's read it all wrong, but then Dan kisses back, relaxing into it, hands coming to cup Phil's face like he's the most precious person. His heart swells. It doesn't last long, mostly meant as a confession, but Phil finds he doesn't want it to stop. He wants to continue until they're breathless, until it moves on to something more. 

“I can’t believe you," Dan mutters against his lips. “Also, we really need to go find that girl.”

Phil reluctantly pulls back. 

"Okay."

"We'll talk later, yeah?"

Phil nods.

Dan sorts himself out quickly, grabbing another knife from the drawer. His dream-body disappears as soon as the knife enters him. Phil follows suit, plunging his own into his stomach, and chokes as white-hot pain sears through him, blackness swallowing his vision until suddenly he's back on the hotel bed, a gasp filling his chest and his hands grasping at a wound he doesn't have.

“Dan?” he asks, almost afraid there’ll be no answer.

“I’m here.” 

It’s the only thing he needs to hear.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :)
> 
> my [tumblr](https://dip-dyed-ghost.tumblr.com/)


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